SITHABILE
Child & Youth Care Centre

"A
Place where Children know what it is to be a child"

We Are Happy

What
is the Sithabile Child & Youth Care Centre?

A home, rehabilitation
and learning Centre for some eighty children from the farms, informal
settlements and streets of Eastern Gauteng, South Africa.

A place of refuge for children in need of love, care
and warmth. A safe harbour for children in distress, due to abuse and
neglect.

A drop-in center for children who are hungry, sick or
cold.

A place where youngsters can re-claim their childhood,
learn to play and look toward their future with hope.

Somewhere
children can dream and know somebody really believes they are gifts to be
nurtured and cherished.

Background

The Sithabile Child & Youth Care Center was established in 1994 to rehabilitate
and educate children from the farms surrounding Dawn Park in Eastern Gauteng.
Originally a day care center up until 1997, it has since expanded into a home
where the children receive love, meals, shelter and an education.

Sithabile creates a safe haven for children who are survivors of abuse, exploitation,
and neglect. It is a drop-in facility for children who are hungry, sick or
cold; a place where youngsters can re-claim their childhood, learn to play
and look toward their future with hope; a home where children can dream and
know that others believe they are gifts to be nurtured and cherished.

The primary mission of the Center is to provide a bridging facility to rehabilitate
families in poverty and children in distress through education, care and counseling.

The main goals of Sithabile are the following:

1. Identify and rescue children at risk.
2. Provide a home for children at risk (sexual, physical and emotional abuse,
child labour, neglect and abandonment).
3. Rehabilitate and counsel children from exploitative situations.
4. Ensure that these children are receiving a meaningful education.
5. Promote literacy and skills training for the older children.
6. Integrate the children back into mainstream life.
7. Assist the children to realize their dreams and develop their full potential.

Relocation of the Center

From 1994 to 2000, the Center operated on residentially zoned property in
Boksburg, which led to the following problems:

• The Town Council of Boksburg constantly threatened the Center with
closure.
•
The lack of space for children to play freely resulted in the breaking of windows,
and forced children to play in the street, which exposed them to speeding cars.
•
The lack of accommodation meant that we were unable to separate the children
according to age.
•
Due to the lack of space, we were unable to expand skills training programs
for older children.
•
Although we had always had the support of neighbours, there were complaints
about noise.

Thanks to the constant support of 3M, we were able to relocate to bigger and
better premises in Benoni in December, 2000. The children now have ample space
to play and run without compromising their safety.

Accommodation

In 2006 we were finally able to fulfill our dream of having suitable brick
accommodation for our boys who have since the establishment of the Center been
accommodated in wooden zozo huts. We would like to thank Selina Rust of Germany
and the Greater Allen Cathedral in New York for making this a possibility.

We are also in the process of completing a girls dormitory which is also being
sponsored by the Greater Allen Cathedral.

We would also like to have nursery for our babies, so that they can have their
own space with an indoor play and dining area.

With the Assistance of the Canada Fund and the Diplomatic Women’s Guild
in Switzerland we have been able to build a Sick Bay and Clinic for the children
on the property. This has been a great help in our ability to isolate children
who are ill.

The Gardening Project

In 2001 when Sithabile relocated to the current smallholding we worked with
the Department of Agriculture to set up a vegetable garden. The department
provided our staff with skills on managing and ensuring that our garden would
be sustainable. They further ensured that our borehole was operational to ensure
that we had a natural water source to irrigate the plants.

We also have started poultry farming, which helps to provide the children
with eggs for their meals. We have also acquired geese and goats. At Sithabile’s
inception we recognized that one of the primary functions of our facility would
be to provide a good balanced diet to the children in our care to ensure to
counter the effects of malnutrition a large percentage of our children suffered
from. The animals and garden have helped to provide the children with education
on how to grow their own food and also an opportunity to interact with animals
through helping with their care. Further it was felt important to provide them
not only with a skill but also with knowledge on how a small vegetable garden
could provide food for a family for when they became adults.

In 2004 we had the grade 10 learners from Kingsmead College, pilot an eco-circles
project in our vegetable garden. This methodology was to teach young people
an innovative method of gardening that used minimal water, so as to be able
to garden even in times when there little water available.

In 2005, we had one of our young girls and a housemother attended a course
at Pretoria University on sustainable agricultural faming and animal husbandry.
The course helped them bring new ideas to continue to have a flourishing garden.

We continue to see the benefits for our children in both working with the
land and having the land provide food for them. While we are currently able
to plant and harvest prior and during the summer months, we hope to be able
to build a greenhouse to have vegetables throughout the year.

Recreation Facilities

Through a donation of a container by the Benoni Rotarians, we have been able
to set up a library for our children. The American International School of
Johannesburg donated the majority of the books for the library and even came
to spend a day setting the library up. A few of our girls were provided with
skills on how to run the library, which has been a great help to ensuring that
we keep track of all the books.

Most of the older girls have been part of the beaded card making project through
which they were ultimately able to purchase a container to house their project
and materials. While they were assisted and guided by Rebecca; a Canadian;
who volunteered her time in 2005, the girls are no managing the project on
their own.

While we do not have a computer lab at present, we do have a few computers
housed in the library, but we would like to see a fully operational computer
lab for our children in the next couple of years. We feel this has become a
necessity not only for research for their school projects, but also a basic
life skill for our older children to be able to compete in the job market once
they leave the Center.

We would also like to renovate the existing hall at the back of the property
into an indoor recreational facility with some gym equipment for the older
children as a large number of them are either involved in various sporting
activities at school or they are dancers at the East Rand School of the Arts.
We feel that having such a facility would help to maintain their fitness levels
and assist them to excel in their chosen extra-curricula activity.

Education

In an effort to prepare our younger children for education we converted the
garage into a pre-school class, where the toddlers spend their mornings learning
their numbers, nursery rhymes and abc’s. While in time we would like
to see a better equipped facility for our youngest children

Our children attend three different primary schools, three high schools and
a special school as we recognize that the needs of each child vary and to ensure
that they are able to thrive as learners these needs have to be taken into
account. Even though we have had discussions with the Department of Education,
and the school fees have been waived for our children, we still experience
problems with the schools demanding fees and we would like to thank Clientele
for their commitment over the last few years to ensuring that our children’s
fees are paid.

We recognize that education does not end in high school, so where possible
we have our older children in Technical Colleges to ensure that they are skilled
to be able to either start their own businesses or compete on the job market
as they prepare for independent living.

Other Programs

The Center hopes to initiate the following programs to provide the older children
with skills while also providing services which can help generate an income
for the Center:

We feel it is not only important for the children to get formal education,
but we also feel the need for the children to be taught alternative skills
as we are not only hoping to mould academics, but also hope to develop the
various skills which the children have and ensure that when the young people
in our care reach their majority they are able to continue to grow and live
independantly.

We need your help

Sithabile Child and Youth Care Center is a non-profit, non-governmental organization.
We depend solely upon donations and sponsorships from instituions such as yours.
Please find enclosed a copy of our running budget.

Any help that you could offer us would be greatly appreciated! Should you
require any more information, or if you would like to see proposed budgets
for our upcoming projects, please contact us by email, telephone, or post.